Like A Criminal
by Bennu
Summary: Manga-based fic. Het, some yaoi, very unusual pairings, violence. One Dominique the Cyclops, three broken hearts.
1. Love Is Hell

"Like A Criminal" – Trigun Maximum Fanfiction – Chapter One of Sixteen

By Bennu (who, incidentally, is not Yasuhiro Nightow.)

This is also part of AnonymousTrigunOtaku's Alternate Het Pairing contest.

Dedicated with all my heart to Ann V.

*          *          *

She remembered the first time she had thought that she might just have fallen in love with him.

Maybe it had been the soothing lyric of his voice as he explained, in perfectly honest terms, what he wanted to do to her, and how much it would hurt. Maybe it had been the gentle touch of his skin on hers, so cool and so warm at the same time. Maybe it had just been a dreamt delirium, a twist in her belly somewhere along the hazy path between saying yes and waking up with her hands considerately bound to keep her from scratching her eyes out in the agony that followed.

Or perhaps it had already happened before all that, and it had just taken her mind too long, as things usually go, to catch up to the sly workings of her heart. All she knew now was that when the pain subsided and he unwound the linen bandages around her face, he had smiled tenderly at her and told her how proud he was of her sacrifice, and she thought right then and there that that was it. She loved him.

It was a frightening and liberating thing, at first, for a girl who had grown up thinking as "love" as something that had made the pickled swine of her father tick. Love was the hateful thing that drove men and women into bottles to die. Love was the word you used when you wanted to touch and break your own children. Her father had certainly had a lot of love for her, and that was why she'd ended up punching six new holes in his body via Saint Winchester and running for it before she was even ten years old.

But that had been a comfortably long time ago, and she had made up her mind. What wounds she bore now were hers by choice. Love, she decided; Love and a charismatic man can make me do the strangest things, and I don't care.

She watched him glide through her life like the shadow of death on the face of evil men everywhere, and saw his rare serpentine smile in alternating shades of sunkissed skin and bright sharp teeth, and red. She wanted to taste that smile and erase the world. With half her vision painted in dark, blood-red blur and the other half intoxicated by the power of everything he could promise, it was no wonder she fell straight into the trap that would steal her life.

Love had stripped her of her innocence and made her a killer. It had seduced her into selling her soul and then took the killer within her and bred the executioner true. She had been eighteen years old when love convinced her to pop out her own right eye and stagger just a little more into the arms of the Devil.

In five years, she would be dead.


	2. Zephyr

PLEASE READ: In case there is any confusion, let me please remind you that this fanfic is based of the Trigun manga, NOT the anime. While the same general plot idea is the same, there are some massive differences between anime and manga, the most relevant in this case being the existence of the thirteenth Gung-Ho Gun, Elendira the Crimsonnail. For those of you now scratching your heads and saying, "Who?", I strongly suggest you get clued before trying to read. As of this chapter, you are setting yourself up to get mightily confused. You do not have to have read the manga to necessarily understand this fic, although it is helpful; just as long as you know who everyone is. While I'm happy to answer basic questions (i.e., "What is the Angel Blade?") I will not individually spoon-feed you Elendira's stats, or explain the whole damn manga to you. You can find all that on Sumire's manga translations, the link to which is on any reputable Trigun site. Thank you.

Like A Criminal – Chapter 2 of 16 – "Zephyr"

By Bennu (an autonomous, legally crushable, non-Trigun-owning entity)

*          *          *

Outside the cold glass porthole, far below and away, the desert stretched out like an endless golden animal, patterned by dark rough mountains and bound only by the delicate blue sky. It was bold and brightly beautiful, framed by expensive wood and red velvet that somehow, compared to the expansive wild wasteland heart, seemed meaningless.

That was alright. I like meaningless things, too.

Looking out always made me feel vertiginously poetic, as if I were perched on the brink of eternity, some epic greatness, staring into the void but never falling. I almost always avoided giving the bitch of an earth below me any real attention, because I simply don't need to. I'm not tied to it anymore; none of us are. We're not tied to much of anything, really, except maybe the ship herself.

She's a twin-zephyred airship, the only one on the planet. We're not the only ones in the sky; I've seen the Sky City, and the satellite tracking station in the city of November. But we are the only ones who move about with impunity, flying from nowhere to nowhere, landing when we damn well feel like it, stealing what we want from the saps on the ground and taking off again.

I own the ship. Well, I stole it, really, but possession is nine-tenths of the law anyway, and the people I took it from have never expressed interest in getting it back. If they had, I would be dead, along with the fifteen crew.

Sometimes we land just because I need to assure myself that humanity is still alive and kicking around down there. I don't have any particular love for my species, the scuffling, crude beasts that they are, but if the Apocalypse goes down while we're flying, I would like to know. So far, so good for Homo sapiens, if you can call living on Gunsmoke a "good" thing.

Living above it, however, isn't that bad. It is a nice view.

I stretched and turned away, pulling the drapes over the bright porthole and settling back down in bed. It was noon and I had no particular inclination to get up today; after nearly thirty years, the ship practically ran on its own, and I was tired. I felt my age, even if I didn't particularly look it. Almost fifty—when had I gotten so old? It had felt almost lifetimes ago, that I had walked through the wreckage of July, the stench of a million deaths in my lungs; lifetimes since I'd run in the direction of sanity.

I looked around me, at the looted wood furniture and expensive paper books, even a little Lost Technology: a graceful black telephone, supposedly some sort of communication device from all the way back on Earth, humanity's ancestral home. He'd given it to me, apparently repaired by his hand, in an age past. Now it was a lovely bookend. In the corner, never out of my reach, sat an innocuously fashionable white suitcase.

For a long time, I just lay there and felt the shadows permeate my bones, listening to the thrum of the engines. I had no clue where we were going. At least we were getting there appreciably fast.

I must have fallen asleep, because I was suddenly, rudely awoken by a shrill, loud ring. For a moment I looked around, rubbing the grit from my eyes, wondering if I had dreamed the noise. It had seemed real.

Then it came again, that ringing. It was the telephone, that dusty thing, which had sat silent for three decades now. Someone was trying to call me.

And I knew /exactly/ who.

That's why I sat stock-still through two more insistent, piercing rings, frozen in a helpless, universal reaction to shock and fear. I honestly was afraid—what could they possibly want from me now? I should have pitched that telephone and all my memories of that time over the side long ago, watching it spin down and away into the swallowing gold below...

One more ring. I had to do it; it was pointless to think I could run. If He wanted me, He was going to have me. At least I had a little autonomy here, a little space between myself and whatever He had in mind.

I reached up, my hand painfully pale on the ebony receiver. I picked up and tentatively placed it to my ear.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it?" spoke the cool, unmistakable voice of Legato Bluesummers.

"Damn you," I snarled, seriously considering hanging up and trashing the phone. There I'd been, about to have a heart attack, thinking He had called—and it was just Legato. Yeah, sure, it'd been a long time, but still... At least Bluesummers was a human being, and when you got down to it, I could deal with him. "What the hell do you want? Or is it your idea of 'cute' to stand a girl up for half a lifetime?"

He laughed, rich tone rendered flat by the static of what was probably a more-than-tenacious connection. "It's not a question of what I want," he explained silkily. I could hear him smirking. How little had changed. "It is, of course, His wishes alone that matter. And it is His wish that you return to our company immediately."

"Why?" I sputtered. "Why now?"

"You will be informed upon your return. All I may say is that the plan was merely... temporarily deferred. And that your compliance is not optional. I can hardly wait to see you again. It's been entirely too long. Farewell."

The line went dead in my hand. Shaking, nerves frayed completely by the flush of adrenaline into my long-abused body, I set the receiver back in its cradle. Two strides took me to my suitcase; hefting the familiar weight, I wondered if, just perhaps, the last three minutes had just been a nightmare.

After all this time, lightning strikes again out of the blue... I still had nightmares about July, of wrestling a hysterical Legato to the ground as he struggled to run into the firestorm that followed to look for our Master. Our Master, who had survived the destruction a burnt and bleeding shred of a being, wounded beyond what twenty human beings could have survived. I dreamt and woke up screaming and shivering, and now He was growing well again, or at least well enough to command Legato to call on me, something that I knew the blue-haired man despised. Something was happening, and whether I liked it or not, I was going to be sucked in and used by the Apocalypse once again...

There was a rapid knock on the door, then one of the navigators, a surly, rough-looking woman who I quickly realized I did not know the name of, pushed her way in.

"I heard a noise," she said, eyeing me oddly.

"It was nothing. I just have some old business to attend to," I explained, trying to look as regal as I could. I probably looked like crap from sitting in bed all day. I hadn't even thought about putting on makeup yet. "Tell the pilot that wherever we are now, to turn and head for Dhimitri."

*          *          *

It took us two weeks at our fastest clip to get there. I stood at the helm, watching the horizon obsessively, low-level panic riding on my hip, hand clutched around the handle of my case. My face was impassive, painted immaculate, but my organs seemed to be rearranging themselves constantly. At last, as the first sun set behind us, something loomed out in the distance. I saw it first, but, then again, my eyes are sharp and only I knew what to be searching for.

As we drew closer, the pilot gasped. "God, it's real."

Dhimitri rose from the rocky earth like a claw, triumvirate towers reaching up to rake at the dark blue sky. I pushed him out of the seat to guide the ship in; I knew what I was doing, even if it had been awhile. At the same time, the pilot looked on in horrified awe. Apparently, he had listened well to the hearsay that called this place the homestead of the Devil.

The engines slowed and we moored at the tip of the tallest tower, where several men had appeared bearing heavy cables to hold in the ship. I dropped a rope ladder out of the bottom of the gondola and scattered down, suitcase still at my side as my feet touched the metal platform of the landing pad.

"It's like this was made for us," the pilot said, amazed, from where he stood behind me. I turned.

"That's because it was," I said. "You should get back in the ship, and stay there. I doubt this business will be pleasant."

He nodded, dazed by it all, and looked happy to obey.

The strange men who had moored us mulled around, looking like they were waiting for something. I stared at them; seven big bruisers with submachine guns and too many muscles. I sighed and was about to try and attempt communication with the brightest-looking one when I heard the cocking of a pistol behind me and I whirled, finger already squeezing the trigger, suitcase instantaneously revealing itself to be a crossbow, pounding a massive nail squarely into the chest of a grunt.

The remaining six reached for their guns but moved far too slow; it was like they were trapped in water, and I fired six more times in rapid succession, bursting six thick skulls like overripe fruit. Panting, blood rushing through my ears, I stared up across the platform, where Legato stood, clapping politely.

He hadn't changed at all. It was like the last three decades had ignored him entirely; his face was smooth and still almost boyish, his fine blue hair falling rakishly in his eyes. He wore the same black turtleneck and white slacks he'd always loved, and that dramatic white coat had but grown a few new accoutrements. Grinning evilly, he wandered languidly towards me, making a great show of inspecting my handiwork.

"As eager to kill as always." He smiled, almost sincere as he viewed the splatter of brain material and blood. I stared into the empty sockets of the skull on his sleeve and wondered who it had been. "Oh, it's been entirely too long, hasn't it, Elendira?"


	3. In the Middle of the Valley

Warnings: Alcohol, language.

Dominique's POV.

Like A Criminal – Chapter 3 of 16 – "In the Middle of the Valley"

By Bennu (who is sick of disclaimers)

*          *          *

"I've always been so proud of you," he whispered, a loving smile transfiguring his eyes into pools of perfect warmth. His hands were so warm too, touching me softy, adoringly. "I love you." His breath was sweet as sandalwood and anise, mingling with mine as we kissed the way lovers were supposed to kiss, as if nothing could ever come between us...

And then I woke up.

I was alone in bed, tangled up in damp sheets, at once too hot and too cold, a massive hangover starting to drum in the back of my head as I looked over at the light still on over the nightstand. I winced and shoved my head under my pillow, curling up tight, willing the universe to just fuck off a little longer.

My addled mind vaguely noted what exactly I had been dreaming, but if there's one thing I've gotten good at in my life, it's ignoring the things that hurt the most. So I simply shut my eye tight and tried to get back to a safer unconsciousness. Unfortunately, the operative word would be 'tried', as my kidneys chose this moment to scream at me in brutalized pain. Groaning miserably, I rolled out of my secure cocoon of blankets and shuffled across the chilly floor to the bathroom.

Feeling fractionally better, I blinked blearily into the mirror. I look like Medusa, I thought, referring to that old Earth myth of a woman so hideous that one look at her turned men into stone. My hair had even mussed itself into dirty-blonde tangles that could have passed as snakes. I sluiced some water over my face, careful not to aggravate the mass of bruises and scar tissue that surrounded my right eye. It looked even more hellish than usual, if such a thing were possible. Padding back out into my room, I retrieved my eyepatch from the table and proceeded to hunt down some clothes that hadn't been slept in.

One black camisole, lavender button-down shirt, and tan slacks later, I found my boots and brushed out my hair, feeling almost presentable to the world. I already knew what I was doing today, and doubted I really needed to get so prepared for it: I would walk around aimlessly, waste bullets practicing my shot even though I was the best for a hundred isles, and then drink myself dumb.

Headache reduced to a mere fitful throbbing, and my stomach feeling like a vast hollow, I wandered off in the general direction of food.

The room that served as a kitchen of sorts was usually empty when I got there. The other handful of residents here kept extremely different hours from me—a few of them on purpose—and so I was surprised to see a human form lounging around. And I was even more surprised when I saw who it was.

In an instant I was at his side, one hand over his eyes, the other snatching the untouched half of the sandwich he had been eating. "Guess who?" I said, caught up in the girlish delight of seeing an old friend alive and well.

"...what the hell? Dominique?" Midvalley squawked, batting me away. I plopped down in the chair next to him and started in on my pilfered breakfast. Chicken and bean sprout, probably just on the good side of going bad. "Don't do that! And give me back my lunch!"

"It's my breakfast now," I growled playfully.

"I was going to eat that!"

"I'll spit in it."

"Fine, you brat." Midvalley sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked older than he had when I'd last seen him, several months ago. There were deep bags under his eyes, and a line on his forehead that hadn't been there before.

"You look like you had fun out there," I chided. He glared at me. Something seemed missing about him, about all the unbalanced whiteness of his suit... "Where's Chapel?"

Midvalley seemed to age another three years right before my eyes. "Chapel's gone," he muttered.

"Dead?"

"No. Just gone." Midvalley offered no further explanation, just chewed broodingly and avoided my curious gaze. I sat and tried to process it. I hadn't been the Evergreen's biggest fan, nor was I really that great of friends with the Hornfreak. But seeing them together had been the status quo for as long as I had been a Gung-Ho Gun, and I suddenly felt left out again, like something was going on right around me and only I couldn't see it. At least, I thought with some small relief, Midvalley still had his horn. Its case sat on the ground by his feet.

"I'm sorry I brought it up," I offered at last.

"Don't be." he said quickly. "Say, Domi—you haven't been out in awhile. What do they have you doing, cooped up in this pit?"

"They" meant Legato, and the way Midvalley said it made my stomach twist oddly. I knew he was afraid of our Master, but this seemed somehow different, another thing changed. I decided to let it slide. "Nothing. You know I haven't had a mission in over a year."

"You must be bored," Midvalley said. "Why don't you ask them for an assignment?"

"Maybe I like doing nothing," I said, perhaps a bit too defensively. Midvalley looked at me oddly.

"What happened, Dominique?" he asked, concerned, leaning in close. "You can tell me stuff, you know? I know I'm a jerk sometimes, but hell, at least I'm a human being and proud of it."

"I swear, nothing happened." I didn't like the look in his dark eyes, and I didn't know what he was trying to get at, but it unsettled me. "Midvalley, can we talk later? I just want to hear you play again."

He sighed again and backed off. "Yeah, later," he said, but he pulled the case up on his lap and had his sax put together in seconds. "What do you want to hear?" He smiled roguishly, starting to remind me of the old Hornfreak again.

"Can you still do 'Permanent Vacation'?" I asked. It was a nice, perky tune, familiar and one of my favorites. He nodded, and started into it, just warming up and showing off a little at first, but then working into the whirl of sweet music that took me right back to better days. I got lost in it fast, absorbed by the powerful, brassy voice of his instrument, smiling and laughing as he finished it off.

He unslung the sax and caught his breath. "It really sounds better with a guitar behind it," he said, almost as if he was apologizing. 

I shook my head. "Dammit, Midvalley, that was perfect."

"Indeed. Why is it that artists always feel the need to criticize themselves?" an unfamiliar voice wondered. We both turned to look, and I felt my jaw drop.

A tall, platinum-blonde woman stood in the doorway, eyeing Midvalley with appreciation. She was wearing the most expensive-looking clothes I had ever seen, a bright-red traveling cloak with a pure-white ruff that looked like real fur, a downy-black turtleneck and a dark grey skirt. Topping it off was the oddest hat I had ever seen, and a white suitcase big enough to stuff a small body into. The whole thing looked like it cost a fortune and had never even heard of dust. Her makeup was impeccable. She would have been right at home living in a wood mansion in the middle of December.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, "but that was hard to ignore."

"Thanks," Midvalley said, looking like he was rethinking his decision to pack up his sax again. Strangers here were not always considered a good thing, and this woman was definitely strange. "I don't mean to be rude, but I haven't seen you around here before..."

"Of course," she laughed. "Elendira the Crimsonnail. The thirteenth Gung-Ho Gun." She extended a hand, fingernails painted true to her name.

She was a Gung-Ho Gun? But I thought there had only been twelve of us. I shot Midvalley a look, but he was busy introducing himself back, apparently unbothered by the fact that this painted socialite had just declared herself to be a willing murderess. He was probably already wondering if he had a chance with her, I thought sourly.

I got up and left, in my usual sudden style. Today was going to be a bad day for paper targets.

AN: Sorry about this being so late. And, as of next chapter, I swear there will be plot…


	4. Card House

Elendira's POV.

Like A Criminal ~ Chapter 04 ~ "Card House"

By Bennu

*        *        *

"Have I told you that I hate you?" I crooned. The wind was reeling through my hair, moaning like a dying thing, and all around me blood was going cold. 

Legato's shit-fed grin only widened, exposing his teeth like—God, there was some kind of Old Earth animal that smiled like that. I could see it in my mind. It had been a small, square picture in blue and grey, a close-up of nothing but cold, black eyes and rows and rows of _teeth_. The pitiless smile of some now-irrelevant beast that had lived in _water, of all places, and that had used that smile to rip whatever saw it into shreds. It ate and ate and was never satisfied._

A shark, it was called. He smiled like a _shark_. "Ah. It's nice to know there are some oases of continuity in this world of chaos. Now, if you'd be so … kind as to follow me, there is some rather important business for us to attend to."

"Wait. What about my crew?" I gestured back at the airship that creaked in her moorings behind me.

"I don't make promises that I can't keep," Legato said, devoid of any pity at all.

"I don't have the patience for your bullshit anymore," I growled. If he was going to threaten the lives of my crew, then he was going to do it to my face. I thumbed the trigger under the handle again, right where he could see me do it. And he saw. His eyes never changed, but he saw.

There was a brief moment of silent panic in my mind, and I think as well in his. We were both playing a dangerous game by rules that could easily be long-expired; neither of us knew anything for certain as of yet. Would what worked on Bluesummers at eighteen work now? He looked the same, sneered the same, pressed all the same buttons. But—to risk blasphemy—God alone knew what went on in his head. Thirty years was a long time. Was I willing to wager my life that he still had the same Gift, the same black and self-consuming desires, the same wirings of half-hearted insanity?

I had my cards. He had his.

"You know it's not my choice to make," he said at last, never taking his eyes off of mine. "Whether they live or die—whether _any_ of us live or die—is, ultimately, a matter that is completely out of our hands."

"And in His?" I said.

"You'll see in a moment," he said. "I'll explain it as we go. Your personal articles will be sent for later."

"So, this is a permanent stop?" I asked warily.

He sighed and started walking away, and I followed him.

The cards were on the table, at least for this round.

*        *        *

Two days later, I was already dreaming of wringing his skinny little Telepathic neck. The reality of being stuck in Dhimitri was even less pleasant than the idea of such, even if I'd been re-afforded my old room, and when Legato had had said "personal articles", he'd meant _everything_. It still felt like a huge step back, like I'd suddenly regained my youth, but with none of its beauty and all of its chains. It chafed horribly, and so I did exactly what I'd done in the past: I sat around, played solitaire, rooted restlessly through my closet looking for today's perfect skirt, and imagined Legato feeling the _wrath_. Wash, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Needless to say, it got old fast.

If I'd been in the air and this cramped, I'd have landed and robbed a bank or something. Stolen a paperclip. Just walked around in the sun. It didn't matter then, and it didn't matter now. Tedium was the enemy, and thus whatever stopped said tedium was a friend. Here, on the ground, once again tied down like a pet dog—which, if you thought of it, I kind of _was_—my options were sorely limited.

So I sat up, got dressed to the nines (a sure cure for the blues) and started walking.

Nothing better to do, and I might as well get re-acquainted with my cage, right? I knew each of the three towers in and out, except for the bits He had always forbidden me and Legato to ever go near. Most of it was wrecked-up beyond habitation, human or otherwise, and was dangerous to enter. But the area just above, below, and at ground-level was quite nice. If I were looking for other people living in this rusty hulk, that was where they'd be.

Legato had mentioned, in his own circuitous way, that there were all kinds of disposable grunts that had made their burrows outside of the "castle" proper, in the canyons and arroyos that guarded the main road and the lake. He had also outright told me that there were six other Gung-Ho Guns—I still snickered helplessly under my breath at the thought of that name. God, if I hadn't _known who'd thought up that ridiculous little title, I'd have burst a seam and died in hysterics—currently stationed here. Six other ready-and-willing assassins. I could feel my day brightening a bit already. If the potential promise for mayhem, disorder, and outright violence didn't perk me, nothing else could._

Naturally, I was a bit disappointed to only find a toothbrush-mustachioed, creepy old man, an impertinent and over-suave saxophone player, and a girlchild who vanished into thin air before I could even get a good look at her. That last was most interesting; I honestly was having trouble seeing the other two as dangerous. I had, very long ago, heard rumors of musical instruments that killed, but I hadn't thought this lounge-lizard's playing quite _that atrocious._

So it was with a return to elegant boredom that I sat down on the third step of the entrance hall's grand staircase, set my suitcase beside me, and pulled out my pack of well-worn tarot cards.

By birth, all humans are given senses through which to perceive and manipulate their surroundings. Although I didn't come to understand it until much later, the hand Nature dealt me was a little unusual. For some reason or another—call it luck or misery—I was born with an extra sense in my head. It was a simple gift, a quiet place that let me in on the secrets around me, just enough to keep me one step ahead. I can hear people's heartbeats, see their souls glancing back at me through their eyes.

Interestingly enough, I had never heard Legato's heart, or seen a soul in his sand-colored eyes. Whether this was because he lacked these facilities entirely or because of the intricacies of his own particular Gift,

(or because he'd given them away)

I couldn't say. But, thankfully, whatever force it was that kept me blind worked on him, too. I can't pry into his head, he can't pry into mine.

So, I have to do it the old-fashioned way.

I closed my eyes and shuffled through the cards as fast as I can. Once, an old woman scolded me for reading the tarot "the wrong way"; well, this is how I do it, and so far, it's been pretty accurate. Put my faith in magic and keep my finger on the trigger: That's how I've stayed alive.

I pulled a card at random, then another, then two more. Four cards, and my hands slowed and stopped, leaving the rest of the deck at peace in my lap. As always, the four I'd chosen were of the major arcana, the fortune-telling ones. The cards with names and faces just below the surface, with stories to tell and warnings to give.

The Hanged Man grinned at me from behind his wreath of chains. Then the High Priestess, lonely as she worked her spells. Familiar cards. Inversion and Occult. So far, so good.

The next card was the Tower. _Chaos_.

I'd only ever pulled it once before. I stared down and saw past the faded picture and into a bloody inferno. I heard in my head the screams of a city, the screams of a man. I could see the light that was scorched straight through my eyelids and into my brain, forever. I had drawn the Tower the night before we went to July, thirty years ago.

My hands were shaking when I looked up again.

"What are you doing?"

I startled at the voice, suddenly angry that I had let a simple card fluster me so much that I'd let my guard down.

It was the girl from this morning. I could see now that she was tall and slim, dressed up in cute cowboy regalia, complete with a broad-brimmed hat and a pearl-handled pistol at her hip. Her hair was dirty-blonde and long, falling in her face on the right side but not quite concealing the fact that she wore an eyepatch. She looked down at me from the base of the stairs with a mixture of suspicion and true morbid interest—the kind typically reserved for the observation of the insane—in her one eye.

I realized then that I was shaking and I had spilled my deck off of my lap and all down the steps below me. I clutched frantically for any passing wisp of dignity as I started gathering the cards back up.

The girl just watched me. Brat. "Aren't those fortune-telling cards?" she asked, with a definite hint of disdain in her voice.

"Yes, they are," I snapped, scooping up the last few and fumbling to get them back in their box. I stuffed them in my pocket and stood, suitcase pressed to my side, grip firm, and descended the single step to stand on her level. I was, of course, a good deal taller than her. When in doubt, find your advantages, and exploit them.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're lucky number thirteen, aren't you."

I smiled in what I hoped was a cocky fashion. "Yes, I am."

She smiled back, in a less-than-pleasant way. _Upstart child_. "I sure hope you are—lucky, that is. From what I've seen, you're going to need it. Maybe you've got something special going for you…or maybe you don't. But either way, you've joined the viper's nest—"

And then she disappeared. I blinked rapidly, and was about to turn and look for her when I felt the hard coldness of a gun's muzzle on the back of my neck.

"—and I think it'd be a shame for you to get bitten on your first day," she finished, standing right behind me. I turned slowly, heart racing but my expression steady, and no betrayal in my voice.

"And I think," I replied quietly, "that little girls should take the time to observe before they jump to foolish conclusions."

She chuckled and ground the pistol even harder into my flesh. "I'm twenty-three," she said, as if this somehow made up for the fact that if I wasn't being threatened right now, I'd be doubled over laughing. I'd been a Gung-Ho Gun before she was even born. I'd been a Gung-Ho Gun before that stupid name had even been _picked_, much less the dozen rabble that now lived under it.

I opened my mouth to respond, but my words were taken away by the ever-peculiar timing of my goddamned hero on a white horse, Legato Bluesummers, who waltzed in out of seemingly nowhere, his footsteps nearly silent on the smooth floor. The girl was suddenly harmless again, her gun tucked away, bowing politely to Legato as he stopped and passively assessed the situation. I was still standing there like a wire had drawn up my spine.

"Ah, Elendira, I see you've met one of your new compatriots. This is Dominique the Cyclops, the second Gung-Ho Gun. She's almost a quick a shot as you are. I'm sure you two will have a lot of fun practicing with each other."

I cringed inwardly. It might have been my over-fried imagination, but I was nearly certain he'd smirked at me when he'd said that. The girl—Dominique—twitched silently at his words. Damn Legato. I should have _known he'd pull something like this._

"I'm sure we will," I said, voice smooth as his was. "Dominique was just showing off her speed a few moments before you arrived. It was quite impressive. I'm already very interested in her technique."

"I don't think it's something you could learn," Legato said. "Old dog, new trick, you see." He brought his left hand up to his chest, as if feeling for the pulse below. "Besides, you have quite enough surprises of your own, don't you, Elendira?"

I glared at him. He was quite unfazed. "Well, so long, then," he murmured. "I'll leave you two, ah, _ladies_ to your business." And with that, the bastard just melted off and away, leaving me alone to fend off the psychotic teleporter.

She looked at me and I at her. There was definite malice in her eye. Obviously, Dominique the Cyclops was not the kind that takes well to her competition, no matter how unwilling they are. "A quicker shot than me, are you?" she grinned nastily, and—

And this time, I was ready for it. I didn't think; I _felt_ her intentions to move. And, suddenly, she was behind me again, and I was already waiting for her, crossbow exposed and the tip of a fresh spike just barely protruding from its barrel, three inches away from her chest.

"Yes, honey, I am." I smiled sweetly.

Her eye was wide in rage and shock as she stared from me to my weapon. I had given away two secrets in the space of a second, but today there was power to be gained from enlightening those who seemed deeply intent on becoming my enemies. She glared indignantly at me and then popped out of existence once more, this time with escape, not confrontation, entirely on her mind. I had bought a small victory, for now.

"'Viper's nest'," I scoffed to myself. "Well, _Dominique the Cyclops_, I'm glad we at least see eye-to-eyes on that one. Stupid girl, you have _no idea_…"

I sighed and let the adrenaline slowly bleed out of my system. I was about to head back to my quarters for a well-deserved return to boredom when something caught my eye. One last tarot card, left alone on the floor. I reached down to pick it up, and somehow knew this had been my fourth drawn. I frowned.

The Moon. _Lies. Secrets. Deceit._

A mystery in the making.

A/N: Well, that took damn well long enough…


End file.
